Easter 2011

Once again, I find that this year's Easter post looks a lot like last year's.  But that is fine with me.  I love this stage of life and our family's traditions. We did our Lenten Lights every day leading up to Easter.  We did them at breakfast this year because PD's schedule for dinner is so wacky. Then Easter day we celebrated with Gram and Papa and Papa's brother and cousin.  The girls each received THREE Easter baskets again.

Gram got them these darling buckets filled with great snacks and a monogrammed stationary set:

Cousin K found these darling egg shaped baskets.  They are so cute and will now become a permanent part of my easter decorations.

K also got them a glow in the dark Etch a Sketch.  Those were a huge hit.

Since the girls receive so many goodies from relatives, we don't do an Easter basket at home. But this year I got them these dolls made in Uganda by Ugandan women.  I hope the dolls will remind them of our time with the kids choir and of the little girl we support in Uganda.

College Sister sent them an Easter package in the mail.  It was full of cool stuff, but the best thing was these glowing gummy worms.  I am going to start getting those for birthday gifts.  They were awesome.

One new thing this year was roller skating with the Easter bunny.  Not your most holy of Easter week activities, but it was fun.

Our church hosted a Seder dinner that was just fantastic. The Rabbi was so good at teaching us what it all means in an understandable and entertaining way.

The girls and I study the passover every year during holy week and have found these two books very helpful.

Every year we talk about Passover and add layers of understanding.  I didn't even know what Seder meant until this year.  It just means "order."  In other words it walks you through the story of Passover telling you the order of things using foods and symbols and rituals to help you remember.  That really resonates with me.  I do think that is how we learn best and remember and incorporate ideas and rituals into our lives.

Waiting for..Michelle Rhee

PD and I got to go to a special screening of Waiting for Superman last week.  I had read so much about it and seen so many clips, I wasn't sure I needed to see it, but I was glad I did.  It is excellent.  Everyone should see it.  I could have watched in my jammies at home anytime, but the real draw was a question and answer time afterwards with the Governor and Michelle Rhee.  Michelle Rhee is the awesome, brave, school reformer featured in the film and I did get to meet her really briefly afterwards!  Here is a picture of me with her and with my friend who owns and runs a Montessorie school here in town.

Actually, here is a commercial for her school that PK1 was in almost 5 years ago!  See if you can spot little PK1:

Mwangaza Children's Choir

A few weeks ago our family hosted some girls from the Mwangaza Children's Choir.  Our church partners with a church in Uganda and one way they raise funds and awareness is to send out these traveling choirs of kids from Uganda.

They are the most amazing children.  Every night before bed, they lead your family in a devotion time.  They pray with such fervor.  They have such a real relationship with God.  I can't even put it into words.  When they are singing though, you know that the Holy Spirit is there in that room. They pray that God will bless your family.  One of my friends whose husband was out of work, hosted a group too.  The day after the girls prayed for them, the husband got a job!  We went to several of the concerts they were doing in the area and really got close to them.

We took them to the water park.

Played games...especially Uno:

Played outside:

Looked through a telescope:

It was a crazy exhausting weekend, but I hope we will never forget it.  I also hope we can do it again sometime.

They really loved just doing puzzles.  It made me want to send a huge package of puzzles to Uganda. When the littlest girl saw our American Dolls, she said, "Oooooo I have dressed these girls before."  After a meal, they carry their plate in and say "thank you for cooking."  And they call you auntie and uncle. And they put a ton of salt on everything. They also have an amazing ability to remember names.

When we had to take them to the church to leave on Monday morning...it was really hard.  I started crying and PK1 did too.

In fact, PK1 and I cried off and on for a few days.

PD kept asking me to explain why we were crying.  It wasn't just that we were sad to say goodbye.  It is just that they were such a blessing. I wish that we lived like that all the time.  I don't mean to be down on our family, because our family is awesome...but I wish we were more like that.  Well, I shouldn't even try to explain it, because I can't.

Here is a little video clip of them performing one of their songs:

Camp Grandad hits the road

A couple weeks ago, my parents left Kansas and hit the road to visit all the grandkids.  Our house was the first stop.  Since all the grandkids (minus one late addition produced by my sister) are now out of diapers, my dad has really come alive as a Grandad.  He always has fun stuff for the kids to do at his house.  A trailer to pull them behind his riding mower, a zip line, and a pool.  He was frustrated though..when he would come to our house that he can't bring those things.  So last year he bought a croquet set and a snow cone machine before he came to visit. Then this year because they were here in the winter, he brought this microscope to hook up to the computer.  OH MY GOODNESS..was it a hit!

 They looked at all kinds of things with it... but had hoped for a bug.  It being winter, that was a little hard to come by.  Then one night around 11, I trapped a spider in PK1's bug catcher.  Gigi, Grandad, PD and I were up past midnight trying to chloroform this spider so we could kill it, but not squish it.  (We were eventually successful with a Raid soaked Kleenex in the bug catcher and some tape over the air holes. PETA fans cover your ears.)

He also brought the snow-cone machine. This is more of a summer thing and not my favorite because of the mess, but of course the kids love eating the sugary ice and feeding the cubes into the machine.

OK, here is the big one...I have wanted to take the girls roller skating for quite some time, but I have been reluctant to take them by myself until they got the hang of it.  I could just picture myself being pulled to the floor by two struggling daughters and skated over to the tune of some terrible 80's song. I mentioned this to my dad and he jumped right on it!  He said, "Well..lets do THAT!"

 Background story is that he used to take me skating when I was a kid.  He even bought his own skates with indoor wheels and outdoor wheels.  I know that is a lot to take in.  But he and I love skating!

Gigi was uber-grandma and comforted tired girls when they needed a break.  Although it was really me that needed a break because dragging them around the rink was exhausting.  But they made a TON of progress by the end of the night. They even said that they loved it which really surprised me because if I skated like they skated..I would hate it!  Gigi bought an Icee for everyone...

And look who showed up right at the end looking just like Rob Lowe from Parks and Rec:

By the way, you can tell where I am in life when I wear a cardigan to the roller rink.  I didn't give it one thought until I saw these pictures!

Gigi brought the girls each a set of Calico Critters.  They are so cute and have been played with constantly since their arrival.

And PK2 read to Gigi and vice versa:

We took them with us to Awana, our nursing home ministry, and the home school co-op.  They were also here for our Spanish tutor and piano lesson, so I think they got a bit of a taste of our real life.  I bought Gigi some sunglasses for her birthday. Grandad took us and Gram and Papa out to dinner.  We also watched the governor give his first State of the State address.  It was a great time!

In February...

We celebrated Presidents Day at our nursing home ministry.  The girls reminded me with about an hour to spare, the morning of, that the teacher said they "could" dress up as something if they wanted to.  PK2 had her outfit..she was Martha Washington.  For PK2, I threw together a George Washington with staples and cotton balls after a quick google search.

Of course, after visiting at the nursing home, we stopped by to visit Papa and Gram at work so we could be admired a bit more.

We had one really nice day (maybe 50) and the PKs played outside all day.

I even dug out from the nether regions of the freezer, these Trader Joe's popsicles.  They are pretty amazing.

Our zoo school included a special docent-led lesson from the touch pond at the aquarium.  PK1 especially was in heaven.

Ladies...start your engines.

"Auto racing, bull fighting and mountain climbing are the only real sports...all others are games." Ernest Hemingway

The girls enterered the Awana Grand Prix at our church again this year.  It was actually the first year for PK2...she was too young last year.  Last year PK1 won first place for speed.  You can win for design or speed.  This year they both wanted to try to win for design.  PK1 designed her car as a polka dot dress and PK2 designed hers as a snowman.  Here are all the cars in their division.  They are #4 and #5.

PD did such a good job letting them design the car and choose everything when they made it.  But on race day we had to drive separately and PD only stayed for a few minutes to make sure the cars passed the inspections...then he had to go downtown for the day.  Something about Ohio having an 8 billion dollar budget shortfall...blah blah blah. Here they are at the top of the track.

Here they are at the finish line watching to see who wins:

There were two sets of eight heats and I am not going to lie...PK2 did not lose a single race! We had warned the girls that it was the exception that PK1 won last year and just building the car and racing it is the fun part.  Also, once you cut the car for the design contest, you lose aerodynamics and it might be slow.  But sure enough...PK2 won SECOND PLACE for design:

Then she won FIRST PLACE for Speed:

Celebration:

PK2 was a wonderful big sister and was very happy for her little sister to win.  It was very sweet:

Anyway, its all about the hot dog lunch:

It was actually a little embarrassing to win last year and this year.  PD says we might have to be like Oprah with the Emmys and take ourselves out of the competition next year..just to give other a chance.